So, when will McCain be made to answer for arming the Benghazi rebels who attacked the US embassy?

Senator John McCain is such a regular on Meet the Press they put a cot out for him to sleep on the set. Again today, another appearance for McCain on MSNBC’s with more blathering about his nonsensical comments about Benghazi.

However if you dig deeper into John McCain’s own involvement, he had much to do with arming the very rebel forces, that included terrorists groups in the name of ousting Muammar Gaddafi leading up to the Benghazi attack.

If the truth were told, John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham made many trips to Libya pushing arms to the rebel terrorists that ultimately killed four Americans. John McCain was itching to get involved in Libya claiming the US would free the country of dictator Gaddafi but before that, McCain visited Gaddafi with the purpose of selling him arms and weapons. This makes people really think of how twisted McCain’s outrage is on the Benghazi attacks when he was promoting arming the rebels in the first place.

In this photo, Sen. McCain is seen with the late Ambassador Chris Stevens, marching through the streets pushing arms, weapons, cash and politically involving himself in a budding rebellion.

US Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens is seen on the right hand side in the photograph with the blue tie. McCain wanted to arm rebels many of which were in violent extremist groups including Al-Qaeda. If you look closely at the way Ambassador Stevens is looking at John McCain the photo tells it all.

1. McCain's Benghazi obsession is that the US didn't fully follow-through and arm the Syrian rebels

(which include numerous Libyan Jihadi fighters) with heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, looted from Ghadaffi's arsenals. Ultimately, McCain is upset because the U.S. didn't provide more money and directly intervene militarily in Syria.

14. McCain is upset because we didn't arm Syrian rebels. Rand Paul is upset because he thinks we did.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) used today’s hearing on the Benghazi attack to confront Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about a conspiracy theory involving moving guns from Libya to Syrian rebels.

republicans have senators on all sides of this one. It would be hard to satisfy them (assuming their posturing was not purely partisan and had nothing to do with reality) since they seem to want diametrically opposed things.

17. Or maybe that is what makes a good poker player.

That Clinton was in favor of a policy of arming the Syrian rebels is indeed a fact. She was supported in this by Patraeus and opposed by Biden, Thomas Donilon and Susan Rice.

If Rand Paul wanted to know which Obama adviser took what position on the issue of arming Syrian rebels, he should have phrased his question much differently. (I doubt Clinton have answered that either but at least the question would have been a more honest one.) Instead he pushed the idea that the arming took place even though Obama had decided against it. Now that is a CT which is the kind of tactic that Paul is good at.

The evidence suggests that Libyan SAM-7s were first received in some numbers by the opposition in Syria before Benghazi. The fighting between opposition factions over the cargo carried by the Libyan freighter that docked in Turkey in late August, early September attracted a lot of unwanted international attention. Notice that nobody is using exact dates as to Obama's decision to hold off (cease?) these shipments.

Unless we accept this was going on under the noses of both USG agencies, this suggests the possibility that Petraeus and/or Clinton may have been running an off-the-books program (perhaps without an express Presidential finding), that was only halted when its existence leaked wide open. It looks like some effort was being made to freeze-out the Saudi/GCC-backed Jihadi militia from receiving these Libyan SAMs, and that blew the operation's cover. It was a question based in fact, and Clinton's response is telling.

24. Thanks - please see my response, #22, immediately below.

22. I read this to imply that Susan Rice wanted a direct US military intervention,

and was concerned about blow-back from more heavy weapons and SAMs going to the opposition. So, if we read between the lines of this article, there were really four camps in the White House: the covert war operators (Petraeus, Clinton); those who agreed in principle with arming the opposition, but saw problems in implementation (Dempsey, Panetta), the direct interventionist (Rice); and the skeptics of US involvement in arming the opposition (Donilon and Biden). In the end, the lead covert operators left the Administration, the humanitarian warrior wasn't promoted, and the President decided to try something different, a diplomatic track and an attempt to get the Russians to sign off on some sort of settlement that doesn't completely destroy the Syrian state and military:

But the president, who had campaigned on the theme that “the tide of war” was receding, was more skeptical, fearing that such a move would, in effect, draw the United States into a proxy war against the Syrian government and its Iranian and Russian backers, with uncertain results. His wariness was reinforced, officials said, by his closest advisers, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, both of whom advised against it.

Also skeptical, officials said, was Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations. Her opposition was noteworthy, given that she had pushed for military intervention in Libya.

“In a situation as chaotic as Syria’s,” said an official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, “you don’t know where weapons might end up, and what the consequences are if those weapons are used against civilians, against Israel, against American interests.”

To avoid any risk of Israeli aircraft being targeted if weapons fell into the wrong hands, the plan would not have provided rebels with shoulder-fired missiles. But that meant that the operation would be less effective against Mr. Assad’s forces.

After Mr. Petraeus resigned because of an extramarital affair and Mrs. Clinton was sidelined with a concussion, the issue was shelved. Mr. Donilon convened few meetings of top officials after the election, which also limited the chance of revisiting the question.

28. Biden and Donilon 'advised against it' and Rice was 'skeptical'. The article does not indicate that

any of the three favored direct US military intervention in Syria.

There are many people who are 'skeptical' about the wisdom of providing arms to Syrian rebels. That skepticism should not be misinterpreted as implying that we support direct US military intervention in Syria.

30. Read these two sentences together, and that's what it says about Rice's position.

Also skeptical, officials said, was Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations. Her opposition was noteworthy, given that she had pushed for military intervention in Libya.

“In a situation as chaotic as Syria’s,” said an official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, “you don’t know where weapons might end up, and what the consequences are if those weapons are used against civilians, against Israel, against American interests.”

The clear message here is that Rice's original urging was for "military intervention" but she later came to join the covert action skeptics on account of concerns being raised about U.S.-provided arms falling into the wrong hands.

31. No it does not.

If you're referring to the two sentences: "Also skeptical, officials said, was Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations. Her opposition was noteworthy, given that she had pushed for military intervention in Libya."

Someone could support military intervention in one country given a set of circumstances there and oppose intervention in another country under a different set of circumstances. It is not hard to find examples of her support for intervention in Libya. If she supports direct military intervention in Syria, I don't think we would have to be reading in between the lines to see that. She would have said so directly as she did concerning Libya.

I believe that Biden, Donilon and, of course, Obama supported direct support for NATO intervention in Libya and oppose the funding of rebels in Syria. I don't find it difficult to beleive that Rice could have done the same.

Since you included this in your excerpt: "...you don’t know where weapons might end up, and what the consequences are if those weapons are used against civilians, against Israel, against American interests.”

That accurately summarizes my position opposing arming Syrian rebels and I am not in favor of direct military intervention. I don't know who the "anonymous American official" giving the quote was but it is probably an accurate summary of Obama's positon on the issue.

“Members of the international community are left with the option only of having to consider whether they are prepared to take actions outside of the Annan plan and the authority of this council,” Rice said on Wednesday after the 15-member council met in a closed door session to discuss last week’s massacre.

The United Nations is conducting its own investigation of who exactly is responsible for the bloodshed in the town of Houla. However the US and its allies seem to have come to their own conclusion, saying that the Assad government is solely responsible for the violence.

Rice did not specify what “actions” she meant. However the US and European countries had earlier imposed their own sanction on Syria outside the UN. So there are fears that her words could mean the threat of military action.

The US envoy said the worst but most probable scenario in Syria is a failure of Annan's peace plan and a spreading conflict that could create a major crisis not only in Syria but also in the entire region.

It turned out, the Houla Massacre wasn't clearly the Assad regime's doing. Probably the best perspectice on that event was provided by BBC World News Editor, John Williams , who reflected on June 7:

In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner. Moreover, while Syrian forces had shelled the area shortly before the massacre, the details of exactly who carried out the attacks, how and why were still unclear. Whatever the cause, officials fear the attack marks the beginning of the sectarian aspect of the conflict.

In such circumstances, it's more important than ever that we report what we don't know, not merely what we do. In Houla, and now in Qubair, the finger has been pointed at the shabiha, pro-government militia. But tragic death toll aside, the facts are few: it's not clear who ordered the killings - or why.

Given the difficulties of reporting inside Syria, video filed by the opposition on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube may provide some insight into the story on the ground. But stories are never black and white - often shades of grey. Those opposed to President Assad have an agenda. One senior Western official went as far as to describe their YouTube communications strategy as "brilliant". But he also likened it to so-called "psy-ops", brainwashing techniques used by the US and other military to convince people of things that may not necessarily be true.

A healthy scepticism is one of the essential qualities of any journalist - never more so than in reporting conflict. The stakes are high - all may not always be as it seems.

36. What else could Rice mean other than "the threat of military action"? That's certainly how they

were taken at the time. Anyway, I think I've made my case as far as I can tonight that Rice was a particularly hawkish member of the Obama inner-circle, and that extended from Libya to Syria and to Iran.

My larger point about how there was a range of Syria policies advocated by various people in this Administration, including covert U.S. operations and direct US military action in Syria, is well established in the record. The question remains how far that actually went, and may still go.

23. A New York Times artcie in yesterday's paper.

Obama Could Revisit Arming Syria Rebels as Assad Holds Firm

The arming plan that was considered last year originated with David H. Petraeus, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and was supported by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The goal was to create allies in Syria that the United States could work with during the conflict and if Mr. Assad was removed from power. Each had a reason for supporting it.

Mr. Petraeus had experience as a general in Iraq training Iraqi fighters and had long worried that militants traveling through Syria to join Al Qaeda in Iraq might one day reverse course and challenge the Assad government. Mrs. Clinton signed on to the initiative after frustration that the Russians had walked away from a transition plan she thought was agreed on in June.

But the president, who had campaigned on the theme that “the tide of war” was receding, was more skeptical, fearing that such a move would, in effect, draw the United States into a proxy war against the Syrian government and its Iranian and Russian backers, with uncertain results. His wariness was reinforced, officials said, by his closest advisers, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, both of whom advised against it.

Also skeptical, officials said, was Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations. Her opposition was noteworthy, given that she had pushed for military intervention in Libya.

I do not give Rand Paul any credit for asking questions that are 'based on fact' when he is, in fact, promoting is own partisan theory. According to Paul either Clinton/Patraeus were supplying weapons behind Obama's back or Obama was for it before he was against it? (In one case Obama looks incompetent or in the other, duplicitous.)

If there were evidence to support Paul's theory that Obama knew or should have known, I believe that there are Democrats and liberals in the Senate who are courageous enough to ask the same questions. Instead it is a tea party Senator asking questions straight from a list of Glenn Beck theories.

25. Most of the GOP critique is a sort of red herring, and only one publicly addressed the real issue.

It's not a "partisan theory" - one of the two possibilities you mention is consistent with what the facts (as they are presented by the coverage) that indicate the attack in Benghazi was blowback from an ongoing operation gone bad. The real question, it seems to me, was the attack the result of a refusal to provide weapons or to continue providing weapons, and what was Stevens' role in either case?

I think we aren't hearing from the "Democrats and liberals in the Senate" because the events are still classified, and everyone just wants to dismiss it without close examination, either because they really supported the policy of arming the opposition or because it is felt that for this whole thing to get hashed out publicly now would somehow interfere with the diplomatic track that's being led by Kerry.

6. St. John McCain doth protest too much, Methinks

7. Note to St. John McCain:

I have no animus toward the Syrian Rebels, but they do Have Syrian Christians in their sights, so, you might think about that a bit before shooting your mouth off. If the Administration armed the Rebels and they started killing the Syrian Christian population, you would probably be the first to scream bloody murder and blame it on Obama.

9. To tell

you the truth, I don't believe anything our Government claims about their meddling in the Middle East. It is all about nation building and over throwing Governments that don't support our supposedly interests. I don't think anybody has the idea of invading and conquering the main land in this country because the U.S. has too much nuclear power. There is no country that powerful. McCain is a warmonger like many others in the U.S. Government plain and simple. They are power hungry. They have the most powerful military in the World and we must control them from misusing it. We have extremists in our own country need to be checked. After all, it was his Party suggested a nuclear war is winnable.

13. .

16. He Playes The Corporate Media Like A Violin...

This dude has created his own "reality show" that he perpetuates daily in front of any microphone he can get to. I can't think of a week over the past 4 years he hasn't shown up on one Sunday show or another...or is having a press conference or whipping up some shit on the Senate floor. The guy knows the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" and whenever he his phone constantly rings.

He also knows how to intimidate the beltway stenographers. They all want to be Johnny's friend and look at his triades as him being "cranky"...yet they fall all over one another to book him, and Grumps makes sure either he or Little Linz is there to get the face time. He's gotten away with these "mavericky" games and will continue to do so as long as the fine folks of Arizona keep him in the Senate...

29. FOX news wouldn't report this

. . . they just MIGHT report it the way you put it. Fact is, this administration has been openly cautions and skeptical about arming the resistance. Stevens had his role there, as defined by the administration, and McCain had his own motive.